Many operations leaders have been there, done that with
re-engineering. And they report, in effect, that the process
is like ringing a doorbell with a howitzer shell.
Reducing costs through wholesale layoffs ostensibly tied to
ultimate results provides quick hits on balance sheets, but its
clumsy blows can raise hell with operations.
Operational results can be achieved consistently with
precision and power not when people are taken out of the
organization but instead put back in.
"Putting people in" doesn't mean adding head count but
instead putting people into the mix of vital factors that
contribute to operations results having power with people,
not over people.
Just as we're supposed to use only a fraction of our
brains' capabilities, so I'm convinced, working with businesses
in major industries, that few organizations come close to
achieving their potential operational results.
That's because many operations leaders ignore one of the
most important aspects of operational effectiveness: the human
heart.
When I speak of the heart, I speak of that intuitive,
emotional, feeling aspect of all of us.
No question: It's not just technology and equipment that
drives operational success. It's employees. Clearly, they must
be skilled and knowledgeable, but they also must be emotionally
committed to their work. They must be motivated.
Yet most operational strategies and programs focus on
rational not emotional/motivational considerations and so let
great opportunities slip away.
To understand how quantum leaps in results can be achieved,
far beyond re-engineering's capabilities, let's view operations
three big drivers cost-reduction, productivity and efficiency
in terms of motivational factors.
Cost-reduction: Operations founder when they fail to
achieve continuous cost-reductions. A leader of a world
manufacturing organization told me, "One of my most tenacious
leadership challenges is motivating employees to never stop
getting costs out of our plants and processes."
Lesson: Cost-reduction is a leadership issue. It's an
issue in which leaders don't order people to do a job but
motivate those people to want to do the job. It's in the
realm of want to that significant cost reductions take place.
Action: Institute comprehensive strategies, processes, and
measurements that focus on having employees be ardently committed
to getting continuous cost reductions, and those reductions will
far outpace the ones achieved through re-engineering.
Productivity: Clearly, productivity isn't about doing
things simply faster but also better. To speed up and be more
productive, employees must slow down, reconsider their situation,
reevaluate their education and training, then take new action.
Only employees who have a strong emotional commitment to their
jobs do well in that sequence of actions.
Lesson: Fifteen minutes before shift change, a machine
starts to break down. The motivated operator will stay with
that machine until its fixed or he will at least get a repair
process under way. On the other hand, the less-than-motivated
operator will punch out and let the next shift operator take
care of the problem. Incidents like these are common and cost
countless billions of dollars in lost productivity.
Action: Develop operational systems that are woven into the
very driving force of productivity: the heartfelt convictions of
the rank-and-file.
Efficiency: Businesses cannot compete well simply by
selling what they make. Instead, they have to make what they
sell. Which means that operations must be closely connected
to the sell, the customer. And because customer needs change
rapidly, operations must change with them or risk making
inefficiency an institution.
Lesson: Efficiency begins in one place: with small-unit
leadership, the leadership of the supervisors and front-line
managers. In trying to realize operating efficiencies, top
leaders often get jammed up in small-unit leader meat-grinders.
Top leaders can usually persuade their direct reports to
participate in the changes needed to make efficiencies happen.
However, the far more important task is to persuade the
small-unit leaders to champion those changes. Small-unit
leaders, who don't buy-in, can and will make mincemeat of any
operational program.
Action: Get small-unit leaders to champion your changes at
the beginning of the change process to insure that those changes
take root.
In summary: When driving cost-reductions, productivity and
efficiency, avoid the re-engineering reflex of ringing doorbells
by rolling up cannons. Instead, roll out simple, precise
strategies tied to the heartfelt needs of skilled employees
then let them get the big results.
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2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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